Shadow Talk
by Maelyn Rey
Summary: Yami and Yugi have a late night talk. Because the middle of the night really is the best time for important conversations. Not yaoi. Sappy.


Greetings! This is my first Yu-Gi-Oh! fic. I beg your indulgence. I'm not convinced my characterizations are correct, or how good this is, but I hope you like it. Also, a warning: it's been two years since I saw season 1 and a year since I saw season 2, and I missed some of the episodes, so I'm not sure how accurate everything is, and it's not very precise, and Americanized on top of that so… be gentle!

Note: really ticked off at ff-net right now. It didn't keep my mind-link slashes! And erased my question marks! Grrrrr... Anal asses.

**Shadow Talk  
****By: MaeLyn Rey  
****Rating: K+  
****Summary: Yami and Yugi have a late night talk. Because the middle of the night really is the best time for important conversations.  
****Disclaimers: I don't own. At all. sob**

It was dark. The only illumination on a single, lonely street in Domino came from widely spaced streetlamps and a second story window overlooking a Game Shop. It was a cozy-looking store, nothing like the huge, impersonal stores that shouted their wares in great neon signs, and held a sense of time, of long years passed which conjured images of ages past and imparted a spirit to the store all its own.

But perhaps that was just the darkness, the shadows that hung over the games that stocked the shelves like a blanket, concealing them, making them sleep. Or maybe it was something else, something more. In any case, the boy in the lighted room seemed neither to notice, nor to care. His thoughts wandered down different paths, over different cares.

A book lay open before him, its neat jumble of letters and numbers staring boldly from white paper. It was the intended recipient of his focus, it and the spiral-bound notebook beside it to go with the pencil clutched in his small hand. Both perched on a dark wooden desk, the grain smooth and all but invisible in the pale light which spilled over the book and little else; but neither received so much attention as was their due. Often, too often, the violet eyes of the youth who sat at that desk, before those papers, drifted away, seeking the window and the darkness beyond—and an infinite number of possibilities beyond that.

Short, with wide eyes and an angelic face, first glance would place him at ten or twelve, but no elementary student would work on such advanced math problems, for their were beyond the reach even of middle-schoolers. His hair stuck out in all directions, tamed as only an artist might consider, perhaps binding a fierce spirit, colored black and red and blonde, and bangs framed his face, occasionally slipping into his eyes.

He would worry his lower lip as his vibrant eyes scanned the page of the book, his feet crossed beneath him and tap the eraser of his pencil restlessly against the paper. Confused, perhaps, the solution or proper formula jut beyond his reach, perhaps dancing at the corner of his mind, forever pulling back just fast enough to elude the grasping hands of his thought. Then his gaze would slip to the window, seeing and unseeing, and a frown would crease his brow. Minutes would pass and the pencil would droop in inattentive fingers until something happened—some mental kick—to jerk him back to the task at hand.

On the dresser over by his bed, a small alarm clock with red numbers glowed: 12:43. Long since time for good little boys to be in bed.

Yugi glanced at the silent, accusing object and sighed. He turned back to his math book and tried to finish the problem, hesitantly writing a few numbers. He had never had so much trouble with math before. He loved puzzles; and algebraic, quadric, formulas, equations were, in honestly, little more than number puzzles. Before he had completed the Millennium Puzzle, he had done little else save solve puzzles, all kinds, having no friends and preferring the quiet solitude of his own room to think and create . . . to solve.

So he should not still be sitting here, poring over the same book, working on this same problem. But he was. His mind kept wandering to a different puzzle—the Millennium Puzzle, and the spirit within.

Yami.

So much had happened since he first completed the Puzzle, and even sitting with the golden object around his neck, the memories flying through his mind, it all still seemed like a dream. He half-feared it was, that if he called out to his other half he would get no answer, and half-feared it wasn't, for who would wish for what had happened to him to happen. . . .

And yet. Yet. . . .

He sighed, leaned back, and gave up on his homework. 'Hey, Yami?' he called, reaching out with his mind for the link that connected him to the Spirit of the Puzzle.

'Yes, Yugi?' came the reply, tinged with an odd mixture of resignation and amusement, and Yugi wondered if Yami had been paying more attention to his attempts at homework (and current lack of progress) than he had thought.

He hesitated, the thought giving him pause, then dismissed it and forged ahead. 'If you could go back and change one thing, what would it be?'

Silence answered. The boy put a puzzled frown on his other's face, though there was no reason for him to think that was the expression Yami wore. Then, 'Should you not be sleeping, Yugi?'

'I'm not done with my homework yet.' He sat forward, picking up his pencil and looking at the book. But that was as far as he got; the letters and numbers may as well have been Ancient Egyptian for all he understood them. The pencil he turned over and over in his hands, watching his hands move it with far more interest than either the object or the action deserved.

Perhaps the Spirit sensed his restlessness. A sigh seemed to ghost through his mind. 'What would I change?' Yami confirmed, and Yugi nodded, forgetting the other couldn't see him, not that it mattered. The answer was felt, sensed. 'What would _you_ change, Yugi?'

Curiosity. Evasion Both characterized the redirection, but Yugi was too eager to talk and escape his stalled homework, the silence and frustration around him, to care. 'I'm not sure. I'm not sure I'd like to change anything.'

Surprise, then, quickly banked. 'Nothing? Not even the pain and loneliness from before you solved the puzzle? Or the heartache and fear after my near-disastrous battle with Kaiba?'

'It was a great battle. Brilliant.'

'Yugi.'

A slight smile curved his lips at the remonstration, the bid to be serious, focus. He took the opportunity to retreat to his soul room and sat on the bed all but covered with stuffed animals. Oddly enough, it was never there unless he was really tired or it was night. Like now. Yami sat beside him a mere heartbeat later.

Even the lighting in his soul room was dimmer than usual. _I must be tired,_ he thought, and it was an odd thought because shouldn't he know when he was tired? Yet, he did not feel tired. He was too wound up to feel tired.

Instinctively, he pulled his legs up and clutched a brown bear to his chest. "Well, it was," he defended before backtracking. "I'm not saying I don't sometimes regret them, just . . . that looking back, I'm kinda glad to have experienced them. I mean, getting beat up isn't fun, but would I have worked so hard on the Puzzle if I hadn't been? Wished so eagerly for a friend? And it showed me I could be strong, even if that strength was just to not let them change me, who I was, what I did."

A gentle hand touched his knee. "You are stronger than you think, Yugi. I know you think you must prove you're not weak, but I've always been amazed by the strength of you spirit, and awed by the strength of your heart, your willingness to forgive. That takes true strength, Yugi. Strength of character, which is, in many ways, more important than physical strength."

The boy smiled and continued. "And then, what if I hadn't had to fight you for control?"

"You mean that appeals to you?"

"Would we be friends, like we are now, or would we have just continued on as we had before we met in that Shadow Game against Bakura?"

"We would have continued on as we had after the Game against Bakura."

"I mean," Yugi continued, as if he had not heard Yami's interruption, "before that we were just semi-independent acquaintances and we didn't talk much. You helped me and my friends when we were in trouble, but other than that . . . other than that you were just kinda _there_. I . . . I like this—_now . . . _better." He couldn't quite bring himself to look up as he paused to swallow.

He heard Yami whisper, "Oh, Yugi. . . ." and had to continue before he lost his nerve.

"And I, I just can't help but wonder if, if something hadn't happened, if we'd be here now, like this. You know? Quantum-time theory or something." He chanced a glance up now and saw the Spirit smile sadly. The darker being scooted further back to lean against the soul room wall..

"I can claim no knowledge of modern time theories, Yugi, but I think I understand better than you think." His manner had relaxed, taking him from protector to friend, and Yugi shifted closer. "I, too, regret many things, not the least of which was how I treated you—and your body, in the beginning. It chills my heart now to think how many times I've almost failed you."

"But you haven't!"

"No, perhaps not. But more than once it was a very near thing. If, on one of my numerous first adventures, before you were consciously aware of my activities, I had gambled wrong. . . ." The Spirit sighed, a light shudder going through his lean frame.

Yami's eyes focused on his other self. "I have never been more scared in my life than when I thought you had died in that Shadow Game against Pegasus. When I called for you, reached for you, and could not find you, I thought my heart must stop. It was a fear quite beyond any I have ever known, far beyond the knowledge of a broken vow such that I have no words to describe it. But it was then that I knew how much you meant to me, when I thought you lost to me forever.

"I would give much not to know that fear again. Yet, standing here, whole on the other side, I do not think I would change it."

"Why?"

Yami's eyes, which had been focused on his face, became distant with thought and slipped to the far wall. "Because without that pain, I am not sure I would have had the motivation to know you, to truly share in your life. And now that I have, I would not wish to change it."

The sixteen-year-old did not know what to say to that, but smiled shyly and felt warmth bubbling in his gut. Love, he thought, similar to how he felt for his grandfather. I would not wish to change it, Yami'd said. "Me, neither," Yugi finally agreed softly. When Yami looked quickly at him, he took a different track. "I think I heard somewhere that life's trials are what define us, make us who we are. That if something didn't happen or was changed, we would be different people than we are now, here."

Yami did not answer immediately, but after a moment he nodded. "I believe that is correct, aibou. And there is no way to tell what we would become instead." A touch of unease wended through the smooth voice, perhaps from the thought of who he would be if he had never met Yugi.

A frown pulled at the boy's lips. "Ishizu can see the future Do you think she would know?"

A frown mirrored itself on the Spirit's face, and for a long minute he simply stared at the opposite wall. "I think the future is like the sands, Yugi," he answered finally. "They lie as they are, scattered randomly, until some force presses on them, changing their location and thus, what they are; or the winds come and sweep them away to a new place wholly different from where they were and they form a new image.

"I doubt she can see more than the surface, and not always that. They what but not the why, your actions, but not who you are. She could not tell us what we would become if this was to happen and not that. Besides, even she would tell you she only sees a small portion of what may be."

"Oh." Yugi blinked. "That makes sense. It sounds like you've given this a lot of thought, Yami."

"Not so much," Yugi's other self declaimed with an easy smile, one only Yugi ever got to see. "But both the future and the past are subjects which have drawn my attention of late."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Yugi said, for was that not what had truly been distracting him from his homework? The future? "Battle City and those Rare Hunters. . . . There's no telling what might happen next, is there?" His wide eyes anticipated the answer he knew and Yami placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"No, not for certain. We do not yet know the face of the one who drives them, nor their full purpose. Surprises yet wait for us, I fear. But I sense our destiny calls us down this path, and perhaps along its course we will find some of the answers we seek."

"I hope we do." After all, they had already. Who would have guessed Yami was an Egyptian Pharaoh? But what was his name? And what had happened to trap him in the Millennium Puzzle? Had that been destiny? Had it been destiny that he, Yugi, was the one to get the Puzzle? Yami thought so; truthfully, Yugi did too, but. . . . "Yami? You said the future is like the sands, always shifting, so how do we follow our destiny? How do we know we're on the right path? Or even if there's a path at all?"

Yami considered him carefully, his expression a mask Yugi couldn't read. "We must have faith," the Spirit answered finally, "and just do the best we know to do. We make our own path, for it is only visible as a path in hindsight; it is defined by our choices, and there are many, stretching out in all directions. It is a path because we walk it." Violet eyes studied him, seeking his comprehension.

And Yugi did understand. Mostly. They had had a similar discussion in school, Literature to be precise, about fate. At least, he thought that was what it had been about. It had been compared to a tree with many branches . . . but reaching for the memory brought him no closer to enlightenment, serving only to confuse him further and shatter the picture he had created in his tenuous grasp of the concept, a fact that was not lost on his other self.

Which prompted the Spirit to seek another explanation. "It's . . . like a puzzle, Yugi, with millions of pieces. There are many ways to put it together, and starting at one point may take longer than beginning at another, but the same picture is still formed, the same destination still reached. No two people would lay the pieces in the same order, just as no two people would make all of the same decisions. And you, given the puzzle again, in pieces, would not be able to reconstruct it exactly as you had before, though the end would remain the same. That is fate."

That explanation settled in Yugi's mind and clicked like the pieces of the puzzle Yami had been describing; but even understanding cannot always settle worry. Sometimes, it births it. A frown settled on his face, and his grip tightened on the stuffed animal in his grasp. "But what if your fate—your destiny—is bad? What if you don't want it?"

"I don't think you have a choice, Yugi."

"But what if you were fated to do something really horrible and die? What if, because of that fate, you were doomed to come back, fated to do it over and over? What if—"

"Yugi!"

The boy froze, his thoughts coming to a halt, emptying him mind. He stared at the Spirit in shock and noticed, for the first time, the turmoil in his other's eyes—fear and confusion and desperation and pain and worry and compassion and hope—all swirled together as his words drew painful speculation to the surface, igniting the one-time Pharaoh's fears even as he struggled for the composure to calm Yugi's. Immediately, remorse filled the youth.

The young duelist flung himself forward and latched onto the Spirit's neck, taking Yami by surprise. The other blinked, but wrapped his own arms around the other's back, holding and being held. Yugi spoke into his neck. "I'm sorry, Yami, so sorry. I didn't mean to make this worse for you. I shouldn't have—"

"No, Yugi," Yami interrupted. "Never hid from me because you don't wish to hurt me. I would know what troubles you. A very wise man once told me a burden was not so heavy when borne by two shoulders."

Yugi just nodded and pulled back, a shy smile erasing the shadow of concern that had darkened his face. Yami smiled back. "Now, do you think you could go to sleep?"

"But I can't! I still have to finish my homework!"

"But will you be able to focus?"

The shrewd question halted Yugi in his tracks and the boy looked back at his darkness guiltily. "If you can't concentrate, aibou, there is no point in staying up to finish. You will make no more progress than you made before."

The younger self sighed, slumped. "How long were you watching?"

"Oh, Yugi; I can feel the restlessness of your mind. I can feel it slide from one topic to another, never settling, always ending up here. Truly, my aibou, what troubles you? I thought we had found it, but your mind is not calm."

Yugi stared across the room, attempting to collect thoughts that sifted through his fingers like sand in a sieve. Eventually, he scooted back, drew his legs up and turned to face his darkness. "I just worry, Yami. About this tournament, about the future. About whether or not we'll find your memories. About my friends. Regardless what happens, it always seems like they end up in danger because of me, because—"

"Because of me."

"No, Ya—"

"Yes, Yugi. Because of me. Because of the Millennium Puzzle. Believe me when I say I would change it if I could." Sad, world-weary violet eyes slid closed. "But I can't. It holds a power the greedy shall always seek, and until I know how it was created, it cannot be unmade."

Yugi gasped, fear choking of any other response.

Violet eyes opened, the sorrow more pronounced though compassion and strength sparked within them. "Do not fear, Yugi. I am in no hurry to leave you. Such a day may never come."

"But it might." Oh, how small his voice sounded!

"Not today," the Spirit answered firmly. "And not tomorrow. Not or many tomorrows, Yugi, I can feel it." A firm hand tipped up the small face, forcing frightened violet eyes to meet calm ones. "You do not face the future alone. I am with you. I will be with you for as long as I am able and you are willing."

"You don't want to leave?" He knew the answer, knew it had just been answered, but he needed the confirmation.

"No. I fully intend to stay for a long, long time." Yami smiled. "One day, you will be begging to be rid of me!"

"Never!" Yugi exclaimed earnestly, winning a laugh from the Spirit, which faded into a fond smile.

"'Never,'" he repeated. "Leave tomorrow to tomorrow, aibou. We will face trouble as it comes. Together."

"Together," Yugi smiled.

Yami smiled, then adopted a stern expression. "Now; bed."

Yugi laughed delightedly. "Yes, Grandpa!" he teased. He was out of his soul room before Yami could reply, and blinked dazedly at the math book as he came back to himself. It was strangely like waking up, but with the knowledge that he had never gone to sleep.

Automatically, he picked up his pencil and studied the problem he had abandoned, almost as if he had never left—only this time, his mind did not insist on flying to other things.

'I thought you were going to bed,' a wry, half-amused half-reprimanding voice intoned from the depths of his mind.

'I need to finish this. I only have two problems left.'

Yami might have sighed at that but Yugi was too focused on the math problem to notice. He scribbled numbers as fast as his mind would let him solve them, and before long he was slamming the book closed. "Done!" he proclaimed brightly to the empty room.

He stood up—and discovered his back hurt and his neck was sore, his hand cramped and his legs felt numb. He groaned at his body's protests to movement, though a glance at his clock distracted him, the glowing red numbers almost more than he could believe.

2:59 glowed at him from across the room; and even as he watched, they flickered and became 3:00 instead. His mouth hung slightly ajar. It was three in the morning? He had been talking to Yami for two hours?

'Yes,' Yami answered, even though the questions hadn't been directed at him. 'Though, nearly thirty minutes of that was actually spent on you homework. I did try warn you.'

'You just said it was late,' Yugi defended. 'You didn't say _how_ late.'

'I shall keep that in mind for next time.'

Yugi snorted, then yawned. 'Night, Yami.'

'Good night, Yugi,' the Spirit replied.

With a second yawn, one that threatened to dislocate his jaw, Yugi pulled the Millennium Puzzle over his head and laid it carefully on his desk next to his math book. His eyes were already drifting shut as he stumbled to his bed, still dressed in his school uniform, and collapsed atop the covers. His last thought before the darkness of sleep claimed him was: _I wonder if Yami will trade places with me tomorrow morning._


End file.
